


Irreplaceable

by Rose_of_Pollux



Series: Inktober for Writers, 2019 [26]
Category: Perfect Strangers
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 02:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21190172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_of_Pollux/pseuds/Rose_of_Pollux
Summary: [Season 7ish] In which Jennifer learns the hard way that her newlywed husband may suffer from sleep apnea.





	Irreplaceable

**Author's Note:**

> This vignette, which takes place in early S7, was inspired by today’s Inktober prompt (“dark”) and also by the scene from episode 2x5, “Life Savers,” when Balki was checking Larry’s breathing while he was sleeping and seemingly couldn’t see any evidence of breathing—between that scene, and the following scene in that episode where Larry ends up revealing that he was “born three weeks early,” it’s more than likely that he has undiagnosed sleep apnea, so this piece happened.
> 
> I reference Season 3’s “The Horn Blows at Midnight” again. There may be a day when I stop referencing it, but it is not _this_ day.

It had been a grueling journey for Jennifer, trying to come home from the last leg of an international flight. Rome to London had been particularly smooth, but London to Chicago had been met with so many delays, including a slight diversion due to inclement weather. It was one in the morning by the time the plane had landed at O’Hare, and it had been nearly another hour to clear customs; by the time she had made it home, it was 3:00, and the house was dark. She hoped the others hadn’t been waiting up for her too long.

The challenge now was getting to bed without waking the others up. Slowly, she opened and closed the front door, removing her shoes and heading up the stairs, skipping the fifth stair—it creaked. She made it to the upper landing and tiptoed to the master bedroom, once again opening and closing the door as slowly as she could.

She let out a quiet sigh. Good—she’d avoided waking Balki and Mary Anne, at least.

She was distracted by how cold the room felt; was there something wrong with the heat? She and Larry would have to deal with that in the morning, she decided.

She glanced at Larry, who was asleep on the bed; the moonlight was streaming through the window, right on him, but it didn’t seem to disturb him at all. His right hand was on the phone, which he had placed beside him, which prompted Jennifer to smile—he’d been ready to go pick her up if she’d called.

Gently, she moved his hand and put the phone back on the bedside table, and moved to go change, but she paused, suddenly feeling uneasy.

Something was wrong.

She glanced back at her husband, taking note of how her presence hadn’t disturbed him at all. In fact, he was absolutely still.

“…Larry…?” she asked, no longer bothering with trying not to disturb him. She gently touched his shoulder, giving him a gentle nudge.

Larry didn’t move. Her eyes went to his chest, which was also illuminated by the moonlight. She waited for several moments, waiting to see his chest rise and fall.

It didn’t.

And with that realization that she was watching her true love slip away in front of her eyes, Jennifer felt her world crumbling to dust all around her.

“Larry!? LARRY!?” she cried, gently placing her hands on the sides of his face. He was still warm to the touch—maybe it wasn’t too late!? “Larry, don’t leave me—_please don’t leave me_!”

She was trembling, but in doing so, she had adjusted the position of his head and neck; suddenly, Larry let out a gasp, and his chest started rising and falling again, rapidly, as his body instinctively tried to compensate for the temporary oxygen loss.

Jennifer stared, listening to his gasps for air, hardly daring to hope.

“Larry…!?”

She shook him again, more forcefully this time, and with a sleepy mumble, he opened his eyes.

“Jen…? You’re home…!” he managed to say, before needing to catch his breath again. He seemed surprised at this, and she just stared at him.

Jennifer didn’t even notice the flurry of activity out in the corridor as the landing light clicked on, and then as the door to the master bedroom opened and their light clicked on, as well.

Standing in the doorway were Balki and Mary Anne; Mary Anne was still struggling with removing her sleep mask.

“Cousin Jennifer?” Balki asked. “What happened!? Is Cousin Larry okay!?”

“I’m fine, Balki,” Larry managed to say, though he was still out of breath. “Why do you ask?”

“Why? We heard Jennifer scream loud enough to wake the dead, that’s why!” Mary Anne exclaimed.

Jennifer paled at this description, realizing that might have been just what she had done. With another cry, she buried her face in Larry’s chest, much to his concern.

“Jen!? Jen, what is it!? I’m alright, Jen—I promise! You must’ve had a bad dream!”

“It wasn’t a dream!” Jennifer retorted, looking up now. “I’d just walked in here, and you weren’t breathing, Larry—not until I moved you! I thought… I thought I’d lost you…!” Her voice broke, and she buried her face in her hands, crying.

Still confused, but now very concerned for his distraught wife, Larry struggled to sit up so that he could comfort her, gently drawing her into a hug.

“Jen, really, I’m alright,” he said. “Maybe you mistook something in the dark?”

Jennifer was about to say something to defend herself, but she found support from another voice—

“She didn’t mistake it, Cousin,” Balki said. “It’s happened again…”

“Again!?” Jennifer exclaimed, looking at Balki. “This happened before—he stopped breathing in his sleep!?”

“Yes, five years ago,” Balki said, his voice trembling at the very memory. “He… He’d fallen asleep on the couch, and I thought he looked too still… I… I checked his breathing; I took a pot lid and stuck it under his nose to make sure—nothing! I pulled on his eyelids to see if his eyes were clouded over, but that’s when he woke up, breathing again.”

“Are you sure you didn’t mistake something, either?” Larry asked him.

“I beg to take issue,” Balki retorted. “The lights were on, and _you_ were _out_.”

“It sounds like sleep apnea,” Mary Anne said, concerned. “For people who have it, sometimes, they just stop breathing while they sleep. Usually, they start breathing on their own again.”

Jennifer, Larry, and Balki gave her a look of confusion.

“…I once had a passenger who was a sleep specialist; she talked about a lot of interesting things,” Mary Anne explained, with a shrug. “But, anyway, one of the things she said was that since people with sleep apnea usually start breathing again on their own, they may sometimes go undiagnosed until their lack of breathing is noticed by a family member.”

“You… You mean to tell me that Cousin Larry has been not breathing at night for the last five years!?” Balk exclaimed. “No _wonder_ Mr. Death has his number…!”

“Well, there’s no way to know for sure,” Mary Anne said. “If he has been, then he’s really, really lucky that he started breathing again on his own all those times that no one else was there to check on him. And, Larry, you really should see a specialist just in case that is what’s been going on. I mean, call me crazy, but the whole breathing thing is kind of important.”

“I… Um… Yeah,” Larry said. He glanced at Jennifer, who was still looking at him with tears in her eyes, and he gently reached a hand out to dry them, and she responded by burying her face in his chest again, hugging him tightly, as though determined not to let him slip away again. “Oh, Jen…”

“Larry…” she said, softly. “Don’t ever forget that you’re irreplaceable. Whatever this is… Please, don’t let it take you from me. From us.”

“I… I’ll try my hardest,” he promised.

“You’d better.”

There was an awkward silence now; Jennifer still didn’t move, still terrified, and Larry was still trying to comfort her. He cast a helpless glance at Balki and Mary Anne, every fiber of his being trying to stay calm, knowing that if he let his anxieties take hold, it would only make Jennifer more upset.

“I’ll go make us some hot cocoa,” Mary Anne said, after a moment.

“Yeah, good idea—I’ll help you,” Balki agreed.

“No…” Larry said, wincing. “Please—you two don’t have to stay up because of this. I’ll be fine.”

“Cousin, we don’ mind,” Balki insisted. 

“What are friends for?” Mary Anne added.

They headed downstairs, and Larry could hear Balki talking about that time five years ago, and how scared he had been.

He exhaled in defeat, tightening his hug around Jennifer.

Suddenly, he was afraid, as well.

“…I don’t want to leave you,” he managed to say. “I want to be a part of your lives, I…” All he could think about now was Claire Hayden’s prophecy, and now this… “…Why me…?”

She looked up at him now, realizing that he was trying to bottle up his own fears for her sake.

“I don’t know why,” she said. “You’ve been through so much as it is, but apparently Death doesn’t want to leave you alone.”

“Maybe it’s Mr. Death’s way of trying to wear me down and get me to give up…” Larry realized. He glanced back at Jennifer. “But I won’t. I’ve got too much to live for. I’ve got you and Balki and Mary Anne, and all of you are there to help me fight this.” He paused for a moment. “Thank you… for saving my life.”

Jennifer managed a nod, still not letting him go. They were still looking into each other’s eyes when they noticed something flickering in the dark, shadowy corner of the room, as though it had suddenly moved through the window.

They both turned, having both seen it out of the corner of their eyes.

There was nothing—at least _now_. The coldness of the room was suddenly going away, as well.

They turned back to each other, nervous.

“…Larry…?”

“…He’s going to have to try harder than that.”

Balki and Mary Anne soon returned with the hot chocolate, the both of them pausing as they noticed the difference in the room, as well.

Soon, Balki and Mary Anne were in chairs beside the bed, and all four of them were drinking the chocolate and trying to reassure each other. Jennifer was slouched against Larry, resting her head on his chest still, a part of her mindful of Larry’s heartbeat and breathing.

She forced herself not to think about what could have happened had she arrived only just a few minutes later. Just as Larry had promised he would keep fighting, so would she—Death would have to go through her first to get to him.

For now, though, she would draw comfort from the steady beating of her husband’s heart.


End file.
